


I'll let you know.

by Nasyat



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Chess Metaphors, Epilogue, M/M, Maxwell Is A Crumbled Piece Of Dry Bread, Pre-Slash, Two Breads Suffering, Wilson Actually Knows Science, Wilson Is Crumbling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-05 13:23:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14619456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nasyat/pseuds/Nasyat
Summary: Wilson stays in the throne room. It's his decision; de facto, he's never had a choice. (Translation)





	I'll let you know.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coffeeparadox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeeparadox/gifts).



> This is a translation of my Russian fic "Я дам тебе знать." - https://ficbook.net/readfic/6731331 and a gift for my friend Fuzzy. I should've translated it long ago, but couldn't find it in me until yesterday. I didn't process the text through Google like the previous times, but did the translation manually and hopefully adapted it for the English language. There are still hitches and sentences that are way too long, but I couldn't take that away from the work.

On the eighth day Wilson lit the fire and settled on the straw roll nearby.  There was no need for that fire, but the scientist didn’t like the pervasive light of the columns, seemingly ignited by the sound of his steps. It emanated magic, and he couldn’t comprehend how the greenish flame of the torches worked.

_“Is this how it ends?”_

Everything here was lackluster, grey, obscure. On the other hand, what are bright colors for in a world of eternal darkness?

_“Forgive me if I don’t get up.”_

Wilson grew cold. He moved closer to the fire, holding his hands forth and shivering from the chill that enveloped him. At least it was dry here, and he didn’t have to rot alive under the constant rain – when the feet inside wet shoes get covered in fungus, the things dampen and decay, and the sanity wanes with a frightening inevitability.

_“You’ve been an interesting plaything, but I’ve grown tired of this game. Or maybe They’ve grown tired of me. Heh. Took them long enough.”_

To his surprise, Wilson found that the enormous hall provided him with everything necessary. Just the exiguous, of course, but it appeared to be enough for now. In places, grass grew from the carpets, and in chests, placed strategically at the paths’ dead end, one could find rather useful items. Wilson’s grasping mind immediately calculated how to use them with maximum efficiency. Constant taught him how to be farseeing. He had to know in advance, to estimate for the future. He had to prepare for the scabbiest of outcomes, and Wilson learned how to do that. No longer was he a naive fool, starving for fame and the thrill of discovery. He would not repeat his mistakes henceforth.

_“They’ll show you terrible, beautiful things.”_

God knows, Wilson was busy. Hands full, and with such troubles that one wrong step would lead to his imminent death.

_“It will change you, like it did me.”_

But he had time to contemplate.

_“It’s best not to fight it.”_

The hall’s floors consisted of faded, patterned carpets with a claim to chic and white-grey tiles that alternated like squares on a chessboard. When the columns’ flames swooshed up in response to his presence, Wilson felt as if someone was watching him from the dark.

_“There wasn’t much here when I showed up. Just dust. And the void. And Them.”_

Next to the Throne, the foreign stare felt especially keenly. Wilson drew his knees up his chest, trying to become smaller. He was unable to turn his head and meet the gaze of those empty, non-expressive eyes, and he wasn’t even sure that was his only observer.

_“I’ve learned so much since then. I’ve built so much.”_

The silence pressed almost physically, but he couldn’t turn the gramophone on again. Wilson tried not to consume too much of the meat that was lying on the floor in abundance when he arrived – was he expected? But neither was there a need to be too tight-fisted about it. The short man let his eyes close for a second. The time here passed differently, he saw that; it moved by fits and starts, slowing down, and then resuming its usual pace. His body lacked light, Wilson knew it. He was paler than death; the shade under his eyes grew deeper, and he always felt tired. He became sickly and broken.

_“But even a King is bound to the board. You can’t change the rules of the game.”_

“The king is the most defenseless piece,” – murmured Wilson. He was sick of this hush, of this silence. On the first day he tried to feed the prisoner with meat, but the other just pressed his jaw stubbornly, and the bits fell down his chin, leaving behind greasy trails. “The mule…”

_“I don't know what they want. They… they just watch. Unless you get too close. Then…”_

Wilson let some of the fireflies go. How something alive could exist in this scary world was unbeknownst to the scientist. Little bugs flew around the hall, softly glowing with a greenish light. It was tranquilizing. One of them landed on a skinny knee, dressed in tatters.

_“What year is it out there? Time moves differently here. Well, there’s a reason I stay so dapper.”_

“Fifty-first, I think,” once again whispered Wilson and rubbed his nose on his knee. The winter coat faded out, its fur grew bare – for how long has that man been here, exactly? It was a pitiful sight. Wilson didn’t want to look.

_“Go on, stay a while. Keep us company. Or just put the key in the box. It’s your decision.”_

Wilson began rocking back and forth, like a toy horse on curved skids.

_“I think I’ve said enough.”_

It was the eighth day, and Maxwell continued to keep silence. Wilson gave up on trying to make him respond, but talked to himself out of habit, letting odds and ends of thoughts and phrases into the darkness. The Throne’s captive breathed soundlessly, rising his chest and shoulders, blinking languidly from time to time. His gaze was turned as if on the inside, and his whole appearance emanated an aura of sheer and ultimate apathy.

Suddenly, he stirred. Wilson gave a start as well, noticing movement out of the corner of his eye. He uncurled from his shriveled pose, and Maxwell talked.

“That’s not how it is, pal, not at all. The king is the most _defended_ piece. Partially, the game is aimed at protecting it from the opponent’s attacks.”

 Wilson blinked and rose to his feet, stretching his limbs that already fell asleep – in this eternal darkness they got more fragile, it felt like, and his joints ached mercilessly.

“Why protect someone who doesn’t need it?” He asked. Maxwell shook his head.

“It’s not always the weak that need protection. You don’t know the rules of the game. Why are you still here, Higgsbury?”

Wilson lowered his head and looked at his hands – calloused, covered in scabs. He clenched them in fists.

“I’d rather die than take your place,” he forced through gritted teeth, glancing at the skewed figure that froze in one pose – once and for all. Maxwell hummed.

“I see."

Feverishly, Wilson went off to wander past blazing columns, across lit tiles and through the halls of his mind.

 ***

On the tenth day Maxwell suddenly tried to change his pose. Speechless, Wilson watched him struggle, twitching in tethers, with dust falling from his clothes. Finally, Maxwell leaned on the Throne’s backrest, as far as the shadow chains allowed, throwing his head back and closing his eyes. Sweat glistened on his forehead – pale, covered in wrinkles; Maxwell breathed heavily. The scientist took off his hat and timidly approached.

“This is unbearable,” hoarsely said the old (“ancient”, Wilson thought to himself) man. “I can’t wait any longer.”

“I told you, I…” Unsurely began Wilson, but Maxwell, ashamed of his minute weakness, already turned away from him, pressing his temple to the Throne’s dark matter. After rummaging in his pocket, Wilson retrieved a handkerchief that he carried through the worlds and the series of long, vortex portals. He cherished it – as the only thing that reminded him of normal life, and now he was wiping moisture off Maxwell’s face with it, carefully pressing it to the shiny droplets of sweat, all of a sudden feeling the strongest pity towards the former enemy.

Yes, he had time to contemplate.

“You want me to do that?” He asked, voice muffled. Maxwell looked at him askance.

“No. I mean… It’s your decision, Higgsbury, I can’t make you.”

The feeling of compassion made Wilson’s heart beat with the new longing for tenderness, even stronger and more painfully than before. He was ill, ill from the fact that his worldview turned from black and white to fully grey – like the man sitting before him in a pitiful pose, in dusty clothes, amidst the dim hall in a world without healthy, natural light. In Their world. Wilson softly touched upon the other’s silvery hair – it was coarse and hard, as if the gel in it turned solid ages ago.

“Am I grey-headed?” Asked Maxwell, wincing strangely.

“A bit,” admitted Wilson. The other looked at him sharply.

“You too.” The man’s hand flew to his own hair, as if he could sense the grizzle with his fingers. Maxwell chuckled, but the grin immediately slid off his face with quivering, and then drooping lip corners.

“I told you – don’t go any further.”

“I'm... not a toy,” Wilson said with a falter, still feeling his cowlicks for grey hairs. Maxwell gazed at him with sadness in his eyes, and it embarrassed the scientist.

“When a pawn reaches the end of the board,” said The Puppet Master, “it becomes any piece.”

“But not the king,” louder, than the dead quiet of the hall needed, replied Wilson, and stomped off.

 ***

On the twelfth day he approached Maxwell with tightly pursed, bloodless lips and laid a hand on his shoulder. They looked in each other’s eyes for a long time, while Wilson was getting up a nerve. Finally, with a quavering, tense voice, he began:

“I grew up in a religious family, but always believed in science. Believed in facts, which you could confirm by iteration. Because, what else to believe in? The guy in heavens? The mercy of fate?”

Wilson took a breath. Maxwell leaned forward, widening his small, sunken eyes. The fingers on his shoulder clenched and unclenched; cold, sweaty, but that didn’t avert him.

“I think Mom would be happy with my decision. I’m like a true Christian,” Wilson grinned, askew and frightened. Maxwell fixed his eyes on these thin, quivering lips. “Or maybe these are just common values, and I… didn’t get it.”

Wilson covered his face with his free hand and fell silent. When he removed it, he was seemingly calm, if only terribly pale. Maxwell wanted to ask, whether he ate or not, - but bit on his tongue, because it wasn’t the time for that, and of course he didn’t.

“There was a scientist named James Clerk Maxwell. A physicist, invented the color photography among other things. And then there’s you.”

Wilson took his warmed up hand off the other’s shoulder, and Maxwell immediately felt a pang of loss. He pressed his heels into the floor, desperately gripping the armrests and pulling on the shadow trammels as far as he could. Wilson just shook his head.

“I’m doing this for Maxwell. For science, or for morals – you decide.”

Wilson’s face flinched asymmetrically, and he covered the distorted half, mouthing silently, “For you…” Out of pure strain, Maxwell thought he saw stars, and he wheezed, forgetting that it was not his choice to make – he lost this privilege long ago, when he sat down on the goddamn throne.

“I think I’ve said enough.”

Wilson was already holding the rod – the divining key, giving freedom to one and the eternal confinement to the other. Next moment he was inserting it into the box, not hesitating or thinking twice so God forbid he gets frightened, or changes his decision. The earth quaked; suddenly, the chains dissipated, and the Throne as though got swallowed by the ground. For a second Maxwell felt like everything colored up, and he smiled, joyful as a child, with this new, amazing ease in his body, and freedom – freedom! so long hoped-for and heady. The older man opened his arms, as if intending to embrace his liberator, but…

Turned to dust with a long, plangent cry.

**Author's Note:**

> ...And thus, by the words of my friend, began Don't Starve Together. Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
